THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
163 
by the spring, be converted into first rate ma- 
nure. 
Sheep— See that these animals have shelter 
through the winter. 
We have thus travelled through the list of 
such duties as are most urgent of attention on 
the farm, and shall conclude our monthly task, 
by wishing you good markets lor your present 
year’s crop — good crops and good prices next 
year, and that health, happiness and prosperity 
may abov.nd with you and yours. 
From the Western Farmer and Gardener. 
HINTS TO wool-growers. 
We cpntess our anxiety to see the growing ol 
wool prosecuted in this country to a large ex- 
tent, and with eminent success. To do this, our 
farmers must study the construction, organic 
structure, and habits ol sheep, and the alike sim- 
ple and increasing laws of nature, which gov- 
ern the transformation of certain elements con- 
tained in the food ol this valuable animal, into 
wool upon its back. 
Both the quality and quantity of this product, 
as well as the health and vigor of the animal, 
depend, in an eminent degree, upon the consti- 
tuent elements which enter into the composition 
of its food. If these be but poorly adapted to 
the formation of muscle, fat and wool, the ani- 
mal must be poor, its fleece light, and its proge- 
ny more or less degenerated. On the contrary, 
if its food abound in the raw materials which 
go to make up these animal products, being 
merely changed into new forms and combina- 
tions by the action of vital organs, then such 
products will be abundant. 
All concede the importance of a knowledge 
of the workings of his iron and woollen machi- 
nery to the manufacturer of broadcloth. All 
appreciate the necessity ol his understanding 
the nature of wool, how to cleanse it by chemi- 
cal agents, and both the art and science of ma- 
king beautiful and fast colors. 
We contend that the wool-grower who elabo- 
rates the great staple of the manufacturer of 
woollen goods, should in like manner under- 
stand what elements of the soil, air and water 
enter into the composition of these cultivated 
plants, which his living machinery can best 
transform into wool. He should also under- 
stand the operation of this machinery, which 
can be largely varied in its results, by changing 
the circumstances which affect it, and the raw 
material to be operated upon. 
We have some twenty millions of sheep now 
in the United States, which elaborate for their 
owners not far from fifty millions pounds of 
wool per annum, or about two and a half 
pounds on an average per head. If we allow 
this annual clip to be worth as high as thirty 
cents per pound, then the fleeces will bring an 
average of seventy -five cents a piece. Allow 
that sixty-five cents per head, and the lambs 
will pay the whole expenses of their keeping, 
the nett profit is ten cents on each sheep. If by 
any means we can enable this wool-farming 
machine to elaborate only the two hundred and 
sixty-fifth part of a pound of wool more in each 
twenty-four hours than it now does, this will 
give an average fleece of three and a'half pounds 
instead of two and a half, which at thirty cents 
a pound, will increase the profit on each sheep 
from ten to forty cents, or four hundred per 
CENT ! 
This important gain to our farmers we believe 
to be practicable. To realise it, requires no ad- 
ditional outlay of labor or capital. It requires 
only a little more practical knowledge of the 
operations of nature, which yield the amount of 
wool they now get. 
We desire to call the attention of our wool- 
growers to the propriety of keeping a distinct 
dock for producing long, fine wool, for worsted 
and mousseline de laines. Several millions of 
dollars have already been invested in erecting 
buildings and machinery for the manufacture of 
these fabrics in Massachusetts. 
Mr. Samuel Lawrence of Lowell, a gentle- 
man of great experience in the manufacture of 
woollen goods, thinks the Cotswold sheep one 
of the best varieties to keep for growing long 
wool. They clip from seven to nine pounds a 
head, when well kept. Mr. Erastus Corning, 
of Alabama, has a flock of pne hundred and 
thirty ewes, which will shear seven and a half 
pounds each. These were selected with great 
care a few years since in England, by an expe- 
rienced flockmaster, Mi-. Sotham, who in com- 
pany with Mr. Cornins, imported them with a 
fine herd of Hereford cattle. A writer in a late 
number of the Boston Cultivator commends in 
high terms for the production of long, fine wool, 
a cross of the Leicester ewe with the fine Meri- 
no buck. A few millions of sheep, growing 
wool well adapted to the manufacture of mous- 
seline de laines, would doubtless pay abetter pro- 
fit than those yielding either telling wool or 
coarse blanket wool. 
To get these, -w'e must improve our native 
sheep by judicious crossing, and by altering 
their keep. We must wisely adapt our means 
to the end we have in view — understanding 
aright the cause and effect from the first prepa- 
ration of the soil to the packing of the staple in 
the sack for the market. 
From the N. Y. Observer, 
FRUIT TREES, 
Age of Apple Tress — do Natural Trees outlive the 
Grafted? 
“Apple trees live to a great age. There is a 
tree on Peak’s Island, in Portland harbor, that 
has been known to bear fruit every season for 
more than a hundred years,” 
The above paragraph was in your summary 
of last week; and as 1 observe you have a small 
agricultural department in your paper, I take 
the liberty of submitting a few remarks suggest- 
ed by the above extract. 
The fact stated is unquestionable. I can well 
remember, when it was a common thing to see 
apple trees not only of vast age, but of immense 
stature. When I was a child, I can distinctly 
recollect the remains of an orchard, on my fa- 
ther’s farm, the principal part of which the Bri- 
tish had cut down, for fuel. Eight or ten trees 
only remained, a venerable cluster in one cor- 
ner of the field. Almost every tree was not far 
from being two feet in diameter, and in form 
more like the lofty and wide-spread oak, than 
our present apple trees. Some of them were 
from forty to fifty feet high, and of proportional 
breadth. I can well recollect, aso, the gradual 
decay of these early tenants of the virgin soil, 
and the remarkable tenacity with which they 
clung to life. As one large limb alter another 
decayed and fell, new and vigorous young 
shoots would spring forth and grow with aston- 
ishing rapidity, I recollect one tree in partic- 
ular, whose limbs all decayed and fell off, one 
after another, till nothing but a hollow trunk, re- 
duced to a perfect shell, about eight feet high, 
remained. And yet this apparently lifeless cy- 
linder sent forth strong shoots near its top, which 
grew ana bore fruit for many years. And it is 
now but a few years since the last remains of 
this ancient orchard were eradicated from the 
soil. 
What rendred the longevity of these venera- 
ble trees the more striking was, that on this same 
farm was another orchard of ten acres^ that had 
been set out with great care, only a few years 
before the revolutionary war, and was then too 
small to tempt the depredations of the enemy, 
and these trees long ago put on the appearance 
of premature old age; and now scarcely a soli- 
tary tree remains to remind one that the ground 
was once an orchard. In fact, it is many years 
since it lost that name. This orchard, I may 
add, had been grafted with great care, with a 
choice variety of fruit, and when I first knew it, 
was flourishing and productive. 
1 have stated these facts with some particula- 
rity, for the sake of suggesting some inquiries, 
as the following : 
Is it common, now-a-days, to meet with very 
large and aged apple trees, except where they 
were set out on the -virgin soil of the country? 
And if not, as I suspect will be found to be the 
fact, to what cause is the decay of our later plant- 
ed orchards to be ascribed? We know, by sad 
experience, that many other kinds of tree.s, 
which once grew, in all these regions, almost 
spontaneously, and bore frui' abundantly, as the 
peach and plum, lor instance, now require to be 
cultivated with the greatest care, and even then 
are exceedingly shortened. Many a time, when 
I was a bo}', have 1, alter eating a fine peach, 
said to my companions, I will now' plant this 
stone, and, if my life is spared, in three yeans, 1 
will eat of its fruit; and as often have 1 realized 
the fulfilment of the prediction. In those days 
our hedges w'ere loaded with peaches, w'hich 
from their mere abundance, the very hogs dis- 
dained to eat, except to crack the stone and eat 
the pit! This fact I have witnessed with my 
own eyes. Why, then, has it become so diffi- 
cult to raise peaches ? Is it to be imputed to any 
change in the climate? or to the exhaustion of 
some particular property of the soil ? And does 
not the same cause operate on our apple or- 
chards? 
But there is another inquiry which I wish to 
submit. Are not all these large and aged ap- 
ple trees the production of the natural fruit? 
Can any man point me to an apple tree one hun- 
dred or seventy-five years of age, that wms graft- 
ed, as our present method is, on the stock, or 
that w'as grafted in any way ? Every man knows 
that a grafted tree is merely a continuation of 
the old one; and, therefore, though its existence 
be prolonged by insertion into a new' stock, it 
will, notwithstanding, in a few' years, put on all 
the appearances of premature old age ; and the 
sooner, as the process of grafting has been the 
more.fr equently performed with the same variety. 
We have become so fond of grafting and bud- 
ding, that most men disdain a natural tree, how'- 
ever vigorous, except for a stock to be tortured 
and murdered; or, if success attends the trans- 
formation, to he consigned to an early death. 
But is this extreme wise? Where did our de- 
licious, grafted fruit come from at first? And 
although the seed will not always, produce the 
same variety, yet some of it will, or others still 
more excellent. 
I w'ill venture then, to suggest, in conclusion, 
that if we would cultivate more natural trees, ot 
all kinds of fruit, and letting them stand till, “by 
their fruits j'e can know them,” and then pre- 
serve the good and destroy the bad, we shall not 
only obtain new and improved varieties, but 
greatly prolong the life of our trees. On the 
present procedure, one thing is certain, as, the 
course of nature— our finest fruits must soon fail. 
Of this we have striking evidence in the general 
failure of the Newton Pippin, which was once 
as universally lair as oranges, and of a large 
size, but now often small and knotty. Other 
examples might be given : but 1 must stop — my 
sheet is full. A Long Island Farmer. 
From the Albany Cnltivator. 
GAPES IN CHICKENS. 
Messrs. Editors: — From all I have seen and 
heard on the subject of what is called the gapes 
in chickens, it is a disase w'hich is not general- 
ly understood. I shall therefore give you my 
opinion on its nature and cure. This spring, 
having my chickens attacked as usual with the 
gapes, I dissected one that died and found its 
Bronchus or wind-pipe, (not' the throat,) filled 
with small red worms from half to three-quar- 
ters of an inch long. This satisfied me that 
any particular course of feeding or medicine 
would not reach the disease. I therefore took a 
quill from a hen’s wing, stripped off the feathers 
within an inch and a half of the end, trimmed 
ii off with a scissors to about half an inch wide, 
pointing it at the lower end. I then tied the 
ends of the wings to the legs of the chicnen af- 
fected, to prevent its struggling ; pla ;ed its legs 
between my knees, held its tongue between the 
thumb and fore finger of the left hand, and with 
the right, inserted the trimmed feather in the 
windpipe (the opening of which lies at the root 
of the tongue,) when the chicken opened it to 
breathe, pushed it down gently as far as it 
would go (which is where the windpipe branch- 
es off to the lobes of. the lungs, below which I 
